The Cuban government said Tuesday it plans to hand over members of the Hakken family to U.S. authorities, shortly after a CNN reporter in Havana spotted the man who allegedly snatched his two sons from their grandmother's Florida home.

Josh Hakken confirmed his identity when approached at the Hemingway Marina in Havana, but he didn't say more. The two boys are OK, said a woman matching the description of his wife, and she left it at that.

The couple lost custody of their children last year. Last week, they allegedly took the children in Tampa and headed toward Cuba.

[Updated 10:18 p.m. ET] Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs was sentenced Thursday to life in military prison with eligibility for parole in 10 years after being found guilty of murdering three Afghan civilians, cutting pieces from their corpses to keep as "souvenirs" and planting weapons on them to make them appear as if they had been killed in legitimate firefights.

Staff Sgt. Calvin GibbsÂ faces a maximum sentence of life in military prison. He was convicted in a military courtroom in Washington state of murdering Afghan villagers, planting weapons on them and cutting body parts off to keep as grisly war trophies..

Teachers in Tacoma, Washington, have voted to end their eight-day strike, meaning classes will resume Friday for 28,000 students, Tacoma school district spokesman Dan Voelpel said.

A lawsuit that the school district had filed against the teachers' union will be dropped, Voelpel said.

A tentative agreement was reached Wednesday.Â Contract talks between the school district and union hadfractured over teacher pay, class size and how educators are transferred between schools.

In the deal that teachers accepted Thursday, according to Voelpel, class sizes will remain the same (the union had pushed for smaller class sizes); teachers will not face a pay cut (the district to cut pay by 1.35%); and a joint committee appointed by the district and union will determine how teachers are transferred.

Across Washington, state services cuts are in the works after the governor's office last week said the state is expected to collect $1.4 billion less in revenue between now and June 2013 than previously forecast.

The first of seven Army soldiers to face court-martial in connection with the deaths of Afghan citizens pleaded guilty Wednesday to four of five charges.

Attorneys for Staff Sgt. Robert Stevens entered guilty pleas on his behalf at his court-martial at Fort Lewis-McChord, Washington, on charges of serious misconduct in Afghanistan.

He pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about being fired on and having a grenade thrown at his Stryker vehicle. He also admitted to shooting "in the direction of" two Afghan males, throwing a grenade from his vehicle while there was no threat to him or other soldiers, and not disposing of the grenade properly.

He pleaded not guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon on three Afghan males.

Before issuing a verdict, the investigating officer in the case will hear
testimony from Stevens and nine witnesses scheduled to testify.

President Sebastian PiÃ±era gives Queen Elizabeth II a rock from the San Jose mine.

Judging purely by appearances, the gift from Chile's president to Elizabeth II did not seem fit for a queen.

He gave the monarch a rock. But it was not just any rock. The stone that President Sebastian PiÃ±era brought all the way from Chile to Buckingham Palace was from the bottom of theÂ San Jose mine, once the underground prison of 33 miners and now a symbol of Chilean national pride.

Officials working to free 33 trapped miners in a collapsed Chilean mine said Tuesday they had cleared a drilling hole that was blocked by a shattered drill bit.

Engineer Rene Aguilar said all the pieces of the broken drill bit that were in the hole drilled by the Plan B operation had been removed, and drilling could begin again soon.

The Plan B drill is widening a narrow hole drilled when rescuers first searched for the miners after the mine collapsed August 5. That drill was making the fastest progress of the other rescue operations - Plan A and Plan C - when it hit an obstruction, possibly a reinforcement beam, at a depth of 268 meters (879 feet).

"This bit was upside down and we used a spider ... to pull it out," Aguilar said, holding up the "nose" of the bit that he said weighed about 12 kilograms (about 26 pounds).

"Spiders" are specially designed claws that were made to pull out the broken drill pieces.

A second customized bit was expected to arrive later Tuesday, and Aguilar said a camera was being lowered into the hole to check it out before drilling restarts.

A Seattle cartoonist who drew a cartoon about the Prophet Mohammed has been warned by the FBI about death threats made against her by a radical cleric with ties to al Qaeda, an FBI agent said Tuesday.

"She should be taken as a prime target of assassination," terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaki purportedly wrote about cartoonist Molly Norris in an English-language magazine called Inspire that claimed to be a publication of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

"This campaign is not a practice of freedom of speech, but is a nationwide mass movement of Americans" who are "going out of their way to offend Muslims worldwide," the article signed by al-Awlaki continued. Al-Awlaki is himself being sought in Yemen for his alleged role as a planner of the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day last year.

Norris has been advised to take precautions to ensure her safety, said FBI Special Agent Marty Prewett. FULL POST

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